What you actually mean by competitive play?

(Hansi) #1

We have a lot of discussions lately about competitive play versus public play.

I think one problem is that different players have a complete different opinion what competitive play for a game like the Dirty Bomb means.

For me, the nature of this game is to have the best teamplay possible to achieve the objectives as fast as possible. The attacking team of 5 or 6 players must be able to use all weapons and abilities of the different classes at their disposal to break the defence. The team must know exactly how to break all kind of defence at all part of the map in a shortest time possible. The more different weapons and abilities you have at your disposal to attack or to defend, the more skill the team needs to master all this options. Competitive play in an objective and teamplay based shooter does not mean running, jumping and shooting only. This is an important part, but it is not the main part. The main part is teamplay and coordination of attack and defence of the objectives with different weapons and classes.

For me, people asking to reduce the number of different weapons and different abilities, are people who ask to make the game easier. Because they are not able to master more classes than just the medic and more weapons like just a gun and because they do not want to learn more than just one way to attack or to defence as a member of a team, they want to castrate the game and reduce the different tactical options to “medic with a gun” only.

So for me the difference between competitive play and public play is not the number and kind of weapons that are used, but competitive play means the ability to play together as a team using all the weapons and classes in a smart way in order to win. (and this teamplay you do not have on public and that is the difference)

And of course you need to be able to run and shoot and jump, otherwise the best teamplay and tactic cannot make you win.

And of course the maps must be well enough designed and the weapons and classes well enough balanced that it is not possible in a competitive 5:5 game to spam some point of the map to easily get a full hold.

But removing weapons and abilities means removing tactical depth and is making the competitive play dumber and not better. It is like reducing rock vs paper vs scissor to rock vs rock only. And that is not smart.

(OwNLY) #2

Don´t have much time to answer now, have to go to work -.-

But woll3 has made a nice point here about stuff like sticky mines and the throwing cam.

In the essence we remove trivial or unbalanced stuff to be able to concentrate on what counts,
and that is tactics and teamplay, not spamming countless class-abilities.

(Protekt1) #3

[QUOTE=Hansi;446338]We have a lot of discussions lately about competitive play versus public play.

I think one problem is that different players have a complete different opinion what competitive play for a game like the Dirty Bomb means.

For me, the nature of this game is to have the best teamplay possible to achieve the objectives as fast as possible. The attacking team of 5 or 6 players must be able to use all weapons and abilities of the different classes at their disposal to break the defence. The team must know exactly how to break all kind of defence at all part of the map in a shortest time possible. The more different weapons and abilities you have at your disposal to attack or to defend, the more skill the team needs to master all this options. Competitive play in an objective and teamplay based shooter does not mean running, jumping and shooting only. This is an important part, but it is not the main part. The main part is teamplay and coordination of attack and defence of the objectives with different weapons and classes.

For me, people asking to reduce the number of different weapons and different abilities, are people who ask to make the game easier. Because they are not able to master more classes than just the medic and more weapons like just a gun and because they do not want to learn more than just one way to attack or to defence as a member of a team, they want to castrate the game and reduce the different tactical options to “medic with a gun” only.

So for me the difference between competitive play and public play is not the number and kind of weapons that are used, but competitive play means the ability to play together as a team using all the weapons and classes in a smart way in order to win. (and this teamplay you do not have on public and that is the difference)

And of course you need to be able to run and shoot and jump, otherwise the best teamplay and tactic cannot make you win.

And of course the maps must be well enough designed and the weapons and classes well enough balanced that it is not possible in a competitive 5:5 game to spam some point of the map to easily get a full hold.

But removing weapons and abilities means removing tactical depth and is making the competitive play dumber and not better. It is like reducing rock vs paper vs scissor to rock vs rock only. And that is not smart.[/QUOTE]

Reducing the number of weapons and abilities doesn’t make it easier. Why would you ever conclude that someone who can master 1 class cannot master multiple classes? I think that is a bit of an absurd assumption.

Personally I think there are certain benefits to having less. Less can mean more in certain situations. I think shootmania is a very well made game even though it has less weapons than just about every other modern made shooter. The benefit is its incredible degree of balance. The huge amount of simplicity and scale of skill makes that game great for competition… but sadly not really a gem in the eyes of the public.

So less can mean more. It could mean better balance. It could also mean more consistency or predictability which can allow for larger focus on skill.

I don’t prescribe to the notion that more necessarily means more tactical depth.

Ultimately, however, competitive play is a match between two organized teams.

(Verticae) #4

Counter-Strike is a vastly popular competitive game, and it sure as heck doesn’t focus on using the right ability at the right time. Not saying DB shouldn’t have some emphasis there, but saying that competitive play is about using ‘more options’ is a ridiculous statement.

(Hansi) #5

Well, I have never made that statement. Please read and try to understand the text. In overall, I said:

Competitive Counterstrike is more easy than competitive W:Et because you have no classes.
Competitive Team Fortress is more easy than competitive W:Et because you have no objective except pushing and every class can achive this objective
etc…

(Kl3ppy) #6

Comp play means this for me:

couple of guys sitting in TS, murka not talking, Ashog is bitching, chris takes rocket launcher, Shifty complains about the game … etc :smiley:

I dont think that banning weapons for comp play is a bad thing. In etqw, it would have worked but the ranked servers + mods did hurt the comp scene.
When DB is comp ready from the beginning on and no “mods” need to be installed additionally, the gamers can live with the restrictions. But the gap between pub and comp shouldnt get to big.

(Kendle) #7

For me “competitive play” simply means everyone on the server playing for the objective rather than themselves. “Competition” is competitive play involving pre-arranged matches between pre-assembled teams.

Competition doesn’t have to exclude anything, other than that which directly affects the outcome of the match to the point a winner cannot be determined.

For example: assuming the match is played in Stopwatch mode, I would say XP prevents a winner being determined because SW is all about setting times, which requires an offensive bias, which XP negates because it usually benefits the defending team more (SD have said they want to do something about that, I’m just using it as an example).

“Massively OP weapon” shouldn’t necessarily be excluded, unless it can be demonstrated that using it prevents a winner being determined (times being set in SW for instance).

So it’s not about which classes / weapons you like, or which classes / weapons you think take skill and which don’t, it’s about which classes / weapons, if used, prevent a winner being decided.

ET started off going down this route then lost it’s way, IMO. It (correctly) eliminated XP from competition. However it then (incorrectly) started removing stuff that (some) people didn’t like it. Mortars went, and then MG’s, mostly because the “leet” SMG Medics didn’t like getting killed by them.

By all means remove anything that can be demonstrated to prevent competition “working”. Everything else however should stay, even the stuff you don’t like, because there will be someone else who does like that stuff, and if you take it out you take them out, and the game gets smaller as a result.

(Anti) #8

I’ve been trying to give Kendle rep for weeks and our own silly forum won’t let me, he has too much already! :wink::smiley:

(Bangtastic) #9

i can see ppl here complaining about stuff which they dont like and only know from a video. Critizism is one thing, but stigmatization is another.
It would be great if somebody can say at which point it needs change before throwing an element away before its even in the game for us.

dont be like conservative old grandpa’s: “everything was better many years ago” In the forums we always talk about our subjective view on things, dont forget that.

Im looking forward to all abilities in order to perform different chain effects or combos :slight_smile: Mines should just take half or 2/3 of Hp as the rest of the abilities (except for some major tier 3 stuff, which gives more emphasis on them). So the player who stepped into a mine/trap/ability he has still a chance to react, even when its small but still bigger than being instakilled by a mine.

IMO the player itself has the task to finish the enemy off by his own gun and mouse movement, not by some cheap instakill event. Makes the game more fair.

If you give players instakill C4 bundles, mines etc you encourage them to use it cause it is way more easy and more effective. Instead most reliable thing should be your primary and secondary weapon. the majority of abilities should be only there to weaken/distract/deceive your enemy.

btw i still think movement can take some changes :slight_smile:

Yes im a fan of hairy manly men face to face combat :slight_smile:

(Mustang) #10

For me very few things are anti-comp, they are only comp-imbalanced.

Comp should not remove all variety, if anything a good e-sport should be appealing for spectators, for which variety and “omg they’re walking right into a panzer trap” moments are welcomed.

(Rex) #11

[QUOTE=Hansi;446338]
For me, the nature of this game is to have the best teamplay possible to achieve the objectives as fast as possible.[/QUOTE]

That’s right Sir, that’s what comp is about. :wink:

Wrong. They will only onse the most useful class/abilities which suit the given situation the best. That means they will only play the most effective class/abilities etc.

They won’t just use all. :wink:

Well, kinda obvious isn’t it?

That’s right for some guys within the alpha, but not for all I think. In general it’s about removing imbalanced weapons/abilities which could ruin the game flow.

Maybe not removing entirely, but restricting could work here. :wink:

(pulley) #12

hansi… thats a big joke…

(Seanza) #13

So, for me, competitive play is about 2 teams going up against each other to win a match. In order to win that match, they need to have a mixture of great skill and fantastic teamplay. The game must be totally balanced to have the best competitive experience, and I don’t mean balance of classes. I’ve seen Counter-Strike being referenced a couple of times in this thread, so I’m going to continue that trend and include it in my analogy.

CS is a great competitive game because it’s simple fundamentals such as attack and defend a bombsite. In DB’s situation, each objective is a “bombsite” in this case. Now when it comes to weapon restrictions in CS, the only real restrictions you get are the use of nades (limited to number of flashes, smokes & frag nades you can have). The weapons are freely selectable in comp in the sense that you can have multiple AWPers (that’s a sniper rifle for those of you who don’t know), and it works well because it costs more to buy an AWP in that game. So, if a team wanted to have more of one weapon in a single loadout (mainly sniper, rocket launcher, MG), it would have to come at a cost (imo). Because a lot of games to incorporate a loss into the gameplay when selecting these kind of weapons across more than 1 player, competitive rulesets have subsidised that by restricting them. Here are some examples I can think of off the top of my head right now;

1 sniper in a team = gets both heartbeat sensors as normal
2 snipers in a team = each get 1 heartbeat sensor
3+ snipers in a team = no heartbeat sensor

1 rocket launcher / MG in a team = no change
2 rocket launchers / MGs in a team = 5 rockets / 2 clips
3+ rocket launchers / MGs in a team = 3 rockets / 1 clip

If the game automatically did that, then it would be great and that is what really requires teamplay and communication because they have to adapt to change from normality. The problem is, public play doesn’t have that same level of teamplay or communication ergo there will always be a gap, but creating a game that’s competitive out of the box will help to narrow that gap.

(pulley) #14

haha seanza wrong thread XD

haha to me XD i am wrong ^^

(Seanza) #15

What? I answered what I think when I think of competitive play. How is this the wrong thread?

(Anti) #16

[QUOTE=Seanza;446701]So, for me, competitive play is about 2 teams going up against each other to win a match. In order to win that match, they need to have a mixture of great skill and fantastic teamplay. The game must be totally balanced to have the best competitive experience, and I don’t mean balance of classes. I’ve seen Counter-Strike being referenced a couple of times in this thread, so I’m going to continue that trend and include it in my analogy.

CS is a great competitive game because it’s simple fundamentals such as attack and defend a bombsite. In DB’s situation, each objective is a “bombsite” in this case. Now when it comes to weapon restrictions in CS, the only real restrictions you get are the use of nades (limited to number of flashes, smokes & frag nades you can have). The weapons are freely selectable in comp in the sense that you can have multiple AWPers (that’s a sniper rifle for those of you who don’t know), and it works well because it costs more to buy an AWP in that game. So, if a team wanted to have more of one weapon in a single loadout (mainly sniper, rocket launcher, MG), it would have to come at a cost (imo). Because a lot of games to incorporate a loss into the gameplay when selecting these kind of weapons across more than 1 player, competitive rulesets have subsidised that by restricting them. Here are some examples I can think of off the top of my head right now;

1 sniper in a team = gets both heartbeat sensors as normal
2 snipers in a team = each get 1 heartbeat sensor
3+ snipers in a team = no heartbeat sensor

1 rocket launcher / MG in a team = no change
2 rocket launchers / MGs in a team = 5 rockets / 2 clips
3+ rocket launchers / MGs in a team = 3 rockets / 1 clip

If the game automatically did that, then it would be great and that is what really requires teamplay and communication because they have to adapt to change from normality. The problem is, public play doesn’t have that same level of teamplay or communication ergo there will always be a gap, but creating a game that’s competitive out of the box will help to narrow that gap.[/QUOTE]

Why can’t the loss of utility due to stacking be the punishment for stacking? You have five Soldiers then you get no revives.

(pulley) #17

because who need medics with a spawntime of 10 seconds?

(Seanza) #18

There’s that, but right now reviving is pretty futile due to short spawntimes and high-risk for the medic so it slipped my mind. The reason a team would go 5 soldiers in the first place would likely be to dispatch brute force on their opponent and/or get the objective. 9 times out of 10 it will work which means no need for a medic to revive for that single spawn wave.

(Humate) #19

Why can’t the loss of utility due to stacking be the punishment for stacking? You have five Soldiers then you get no revives.

Mentioned this in the ‘Sustainable Fun’ thread. :slight_smile:

The built in cost of losing all the other class resources, isn’t balanced with the damage output of playing 5 soldiers.

(sunshinefats) #20

For me, like some others, competition is 2 TEAMS(not 2 teams of individuals trying for the highest kd) having a battle of skill and intelligence in order to complete the set objectives of the map. But there are currently a lot of obstacles standing in the way of this happening.
Sticking to things mentioned here, I don’t find more weapon choices, etc. a bad thing. I’m all for it. More options means more thought and strategy about how best to use them in the given situation. And with certain ones only available to certain classes, adds the thought and strategy of what class is best suited to the situation. And thinking and strategy is a lot of what I consider a competitive game. I agree that if teams stacked, that, in and of itself, should be punishment, but there is nothing in place to enforce that punishment yet. There needs to then be, just as an example, deployables that can’t be destroyed by a medic stacked team, etc. Forcing them to think less about easy kills and more about how do I help my team complete the objective. Players should be thinking what are WE(the team) missing here? What can I (as a member of the team) do to help right now? These are the feelings we want to inspire in players. Let us THINK. Let us come up with our own plan; our own strategy. Give us the freedom to enjoy the game. If it makes sense, that is competition to me.